Written by

Gannett Wisconsin Media Investigative Team

Wisconsin Badgers head coach Bo Ryan gives directions to freshman Sam Dekker as the team plays the Southeastern Louisiana Lions at the Kohl Center on Nov 11, 2012. Ryan is among the highest paid coaches in the UW System with a 2011-12 salary of $2.1 million. / Mary Langenfeld-US PRESSWIRE

More

ADVERTISEMENT

Two of the highest-paid athletic coaches in the University of Wisconsin System during the 2011-12 school year have already left for better-paying jobs elsewhere.

The highest-paid employee ó UW football coach Bret Bielema ó left in December to coach the University of Arkansas, and former offensive coordinator Paul Chryst left a year earlier for a head coaching post at the University of Pittsburgh.

Bielema will make ís move came with only a slight pay bump ó heíll make $3.2 million at Arkansas; he and was paid around $2.8 million at Wisconsin ó but as he left he criticized UWís pay for assistant coaches as one of the reasons he left. Chryst was scheduled to make $535,000 in the 2011-12 fiscal year, but data gathered by USA Today shows that no current Wisconsin football assistant is making more than half that.

USA Today, which gathered data from all 124 Football Bowl Subdivision schools, reported the average major-college football assistant earns about $200,000. Wisconsinís assistants this year maxed out at $267,000 and averaged $197,000, while Arkansas had two assistants at $425,000 and averaged $284,000.

New UW football coach Gary Anderson will reportedly make $1.8 million in his first year, which would rank 48th in the country. Bielemaís 2012 salary ranked 18th.

Athletic Director Barry Alvarez, whose $1.1 million salary ranks third in the UW System, responded in his own press conference that UW assistant pay is ďcompetitive and fair.Ē

Across the UW System, 39 coaches made $100,000 or more in 2011-12, according to data Gannett Wisconsin Media obtained through an open records request. The top salaries after Bielema in 2011-12 were UW menís basketball coach Bo Ryan at $2.1 million and UW-Milwaukee menís basketball coach Rob Jeter at $414,000. UW-Green Bay menís basketball coach Brian Wardle, who pilots the stateís other Division 1 program, ranked 13th at $203,000.

UW-Madisonís hockey coaches were also among the Top 10, with menís coach Mike Eaves pulling down $306,000 and womenís coach Mark Johnson making $251,000.

All but one of the six-figure coaches worked at UW-Madison, UW-Milwaukee or UW-Green Bay. The exception was the $100,000 salary for UW-Whitewater football coach Lance Leipold, whose teams played in the NCAA Division III national championship every year from 2005 to 2011, winning it four times.

The other highest-paid coaches among the lower-division schools were the womenís basketball coach at UW-Eau Claire (Tonja Englund, $88,000) and UW-Whitewater coaches for tennis (Frank Barnes, $87,000), menís basketball (Patrick Miller, $80,000) and baseball (John Vodenlich, $79,000). Football coaches took only eight of the 25 highest salaries across the 10 smaller UW universities, a list that also included eight basketball coaches, two hockey coaches, two volleyball coaches and one coach each from five other sports.